September 22, 2000

In fact, time travelers who arrived today from early August might well be forgiven for thinking that they had taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in an alternate reality ... and a surreal one at that.  They would find Bush, the frontrunner for as far back as almost anyone can remember, not only behind but veering perilously close to falling out of the race.  Silly debate games, proctological comments spoken into live microphones, "subliminable" RATS on television screens -- it's been that sort of month. 

And on the other side, something odd happened to old wooden Al Gore: he turned out to be a figment of pundit culture.  When last I wrote, Beltway wisdom had Gore on the verge of collapse (and I confess that I was beginning to sweat it myself).    Somehow he had to "separate himself from Clinton," "bring home the base," and, apparently, prove to the pundits' satisfaction that he wasn't from one of the planets orbiting Upsilon Andromedae.  He had, moreover, to do it during a Democratic Convention that pundit wisdom panned from beginning to end.  (How soon we forget -- go back and read the morning-after reviews of Gore's acceptance speech.)  

Soooo ... what is the state of the race now, in late September?  First, the numbers.  As I write, the latest CNN/Gallup tracking poll has Gore leading by 6 points, which is about what most other recent polls show, and also just about the midpoint between the Gore-outlying Newsleak poll (14 points) and the Bush-outlying Rasmussen poll (Bush by 3 points).  This is not much changed since just after the convention.   Gore's margin has widened slightly, and last week it seemed as though the Bush campaign might go into a graveyard spiral, but at least for now he seems to have found a floor of support.

More worrisome for Bush than the margin -- 6 points isn't the Grand Canyon -- is the momentum pattern.  The long-term movement of this campaign has been almost entirely in Gore's direction.  Throughout 1999 (i.e., when no one was paying much attention), Bush led in every poll, and only in about seven out of 140 polls that year was his margin less than double digits.  But once the primaries got going, Bush slipped in the trial heats while Gore gained, and was just pulling even when the March 7 Super Tuesday round brought the primary season to a screeching halt.  Only then did Bush regain a bit of ground -- probably as some McCain Republicans drifted back -- but never to anything near his big 1999 lead.  Through the spring and summer Bush led by about 5 points, spiked briefly into double digits with the GOP convention ... then fell promptly behind with the Dem convention.

Every time the campaign gets interesting, Gore's elevator goes up a couple of floors, and Bush's goes down a couple of floors.  This, for a Bush strategist, cannot be welcome news. 

Nor, needless to say, is it welcome news for other Republicans, who were more or less counting on Bush to pull them through.  In my House district, on the California central coast, the Republican challenger to Lois Capps has been hugging Bush tighter than Al hugged Tipper.  His campaign signs read Bush/Stoker, as though he were Bush's running mate.  He obviously hoped that Bush would be his water wings to keep him afloat; alas, Bush is starting to look more and more like an anchor.

The surest sign of all, though, of what direction this race is going is that Bush has now decided to campaign on -- Oh, the humanity! -- Issues.   This of course was not at all the original Bush game plan.  Issues are boring and wonkish.  Campaigning on issues implies reading 500-page briefing books, something Bush is on record as finding disagreeable.  Worse, the issues all happen to favor Democrats, an awkward circumstance for a Republican nominee. 

No surprise, then, that Bush is now campaigning on issues without going out of his way to specify which ones.  Oil prices?  Not a winner, when the GOP ticket has two oilmen on it.  Health care and drug prices?  As they say in New York, fuggeddaboudit!   Tax cuts?  Thanks but no thanks.  Education?  At one time this was supposed to be Bush's crown jewel.  Unfortunately, the Texas education record is like a lake seen far down a West Texas highway: generally a mirage.  Yes, test scores have risen.  Alas, they've done so largely because a) the state curriculum has been reduced to little more than drilling for the test, and b) kids who might pull down the average are reclassified as special-ed students, exempt from the test, and also have an alarming tendency to drop out.  These awkward facts have gotten little play, largely perhaps because Bush's education theme has gone the way of "A Reformer With Results."  Now Bush offers "Real Plans for Real People" -- as opposed, presumably, to imaginary plans for imaginary people. 

Alas, the dismal truth (dismal at least for Republicans) is that the Bush campaign has no plans for anyone.  The true underlying -- one might say "subliminable" -- Bush strategy for this campaign was snooze 'n' cruise:   So long as the election was a snooze, Bush might cruise to victory.  At one time this seemed a plausible strategy.  The polls showed Bush consistantly ahead, and public attention was minimal.

Unfortunately, this strategy had the same circular logic that the Bush campaign has displayed from the start: Bush was always ahead simply because he was ahead.  The GOP establishment anointed him not so much because he was a Republican president's son (though that helped), but because he was ahead in the polls.  GOP contributors poured an endless stream of money into his campaign because he was ahead.  The pundits said he was ahead because, well, he was ahead.  

The trouble with circular logic is that it is particularly prone to collapse.   Bush is not ahead any more.  And thus the only real argument for his candidacy is gone.

-- Rick Robinson

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Last revised 11/07/2006 ... by RM Robinson

Email me: Lyonesse@compuserve.com

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